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Video Highlights from Oldways Common Ground

For those of you who attended, and those who could not, we present a diverse video collection of everything related to Finding Common Ground. You may also see extensive, full-length videos of each presentation from Finding Common Ground.

To augment the full-length videos, we wanted to go one step further. We invited conference attendees to answer some crucial questions about nutrition and healthy eating, questions we thought our audience would want answered. Their compelling responses are featured here in these exclusive video highlights. This is the ﬁrst installment of uploads, and we will update as more videos are completed.

The Inspiration Behind Finding Common Ground
President Sara Baer-Sinnott explains why Oldways felt compelled to organize Finding Common Ground and unite the world’s top nutrition experts: To get at the heart of what constitutes a healthy and sustainable way of eating, and to eliminate consumer confusion about healthy foods.

Enough with Nutrients, Let’s Talk About Food

Dr. David Katz, founder and director of the Yale Prevention Research Center and Finding Common Ground scientiﬁc co-chair, discusses an exciting trend in nutrition studies — a shift from analyzing individual nutrients to looking at food and dietary patterns.

How to Make the Shift to a Plant-based Diet
Dr. Neal Barnard, President of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, explains how to shift to a vegetarian diet. While you can dip your toes in to test the waters, he recommends diving in head-ﬁrst. As time goes on you discover all the beneﬁts of eating a plant-based diet, but will not have to acquire a taste for folk music.

Cook More to Eat Better
What better way to understand exactly what you’re eating than to be adding each ingredient yourself? Food Network star and author Ellie Krieger says that the easiest way to get people to eat better is if they cook for themselves.

Changing Social Norms Around Food
Dr. Christopher Gardner of Stanford University studies the norms of diet and food, and how those norms have thrown the typical American diet out of whack. He believes we need to prioritize knowing where food comes from, preparing and eating meals together, and understanding what food is all about.

How Do We Change the American Diet
Brierly Wright, nutrition editor for EatingWell, explains that some of the most powerful ways to improve the American Diet stem from social support, changing social norms, and otherwise creating an environment that encourages people to truly eat healthy.

Eating More Fish Requires Sustainable Systems
Dr. Eric Rimm, professor at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, poses a big question: How do we farm ﬁsh without ruining the environment? As the industry depletes sustainable sources of wild ﬁsh, science must develop healthy ways of farming ﬁsh to support an ever-growing population of ﬁsh eaters.

The Amazing Powers of Nutrition
Dr. T. Colin Campbell, founder of the Center for Nutrition Studies and author of “The China Study,” shares his enthusiasm for all that nutrition can accomplish. Not only can good nutrition be used to prevent disease, but it can reverse and heal major health issues — like advanced heart disease and type II diabetes.

Is a Vegetarian Paleo Diet Possible
S. Boyd Eaton, the father of the Paleo Diet, made a bold statement at Finding Common Ground that shifted some deﬁnitions of a Paleo diet. With his research based on how humans lived during Paleolithic times, Eaton says YES, a vegetarian Paleo diet IS possible, and the answers are held in the past.

The Rise & Fall of Fad Diets
Fad diets come and go, but the old ways are becoming new again according to Jeanne Teshler, of Moor Insights & Strategy and Forbes. Because consumers grow tired of trends, yet want a relatable diet identity, the Mediterranean Diet is experiencing an increase in popularity as its old ways are found to be the gold standard for health.

Zoom Out: We Need a Macro View on Food
Food Network star and author Ellie Krieger shares what she sees as the next steps, after the Finding Common Ground conference, to eliminating the public’s confusion about nutrition. Many scientists and experts are in seemingly disparate camps, but when we zoom out from those camps, we realize there’s much more common ground than we thought.

Five Principles of Healthy Eating
Dr. Meir Stampfer, professor at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, says that 20 years ago nutrition advice wrongly boiled down to one statement: Fat is bad. To better educate the public about health eating, he breaks down nutrition advice into ﬁve main pieces that accurately reﬂect what we know about nutrition today.

The Joy of Diet
“When you begin to eat and live healthier, you feel so much better so quickly it re-frames the reason for making these changes,” says Dean Ornish, founder of the Preventative Medicine Research Institute. A sustainable approach is to eat well and live healthy because those choices bring you joy and pleasure in the now.

Why Cultural Food and the Old Ways Will Never Die
These days people want to be more connected to their food, and are enjoying the cultural part of their food experiences, says Oldways President Sara Baer-Sinnott. Cultural food traditions are healthy, sustainable, and taste delicious. Though food trends come and go, traditional cuisines will live forever and continue to be relevant in nutrition studies and foodie culture alike.